The present invention relates to calculators and more particularly to a recipe conversion calculator.
A universal and long standing complaint of most cooks is that recipes always seem to be for a number of servings different from the number of servings the cook desires to prepare. Heretofore, the cook has faced the undesirable alternatives of either preparing the recipe as stated or of working through the arithmetic of converting from the stated quantity for each ingredient to the quantity needed for the number of servings desired.
Also, cookbooks are invariably written with local units of measure. For example, American cookbooks call for measurements in terms such as tablespoons, cups, pints, quarts or gallons while European cookbooks may express similar volumes in terms of cubic centimeters or liters. A cook familiar with only one of the systems of measure has a great deal of difficulty in utilizing a recipe written with different units of measure.
Even where the recipe is written with units of measure with which the cook is quite familiar, a cook may find the recipe expresses a quantity of an ingredient in a unit measure for which the cook can find no measuring utensil. For example, the recipe may call for a certain number of quarts of a particular ingredient while the cook can only find a cup-sized measuring utensil. Heretofore, any cook who had not committed the necessary conversion factors to memory, was forced to make a calculation, using a printed conversion table in order to determine the number of cups per quart.
Naturally, errors in performing the required calculations have led to errors in the quantities actually used in preparing recipes with, at times, consequent culinary disaster.